Proclamation 5926 --
National Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service Centennial Day, 1989

December 23, 1988

By
the President of the United States of
America

A
Proclamation

On
January 4, 1989, the members of the
Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service celebrate a
century of service to Americans and to all mankind. The rest of us can join in
this celebration as well, to express our thanks and pride at their successes
over the past 100 years.

Those
successes have been notable. They include playing a key role in many
breakthroughs in health care; battling diseases such as smallpox, tuberculosis,
and pellagra; developing vaccines; performing with efficiency and courage
during emergencies, epidemics, and similar situations; and working in fields
such as disease control and prevention, research, environmental intervention,
and health care delivery and program management.

Commissioned
Corps members' broad training and experience make them an effective team of
medical and health experts. The Corps offers health care for American Indians,
Native Alaskans, the Coast Guard, the Merchant Marine, and the Bureau of Prisons
and helps provide consumer protection.

Every
member of the Commissioned Corps, past and present, deserves the heartfelt
congratulations of the American people for outstanding accomplishment in public
health. That is a debt we should be only too happy to pay, on the centennial of
the Corps and always.

The
Congress, by Public Law 100 - 652, has designated January
4, 1989,
as ``National Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service Centennial Day''
and authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in
observance of this event.

Now,
Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of
America, do hereby proclaim January
4, 1989,
as National Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service Centennial Day, and
I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and
activities.

In
Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-third day of December,
in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the two hundred and thirteenth.

Ronald
Reagan

[Filed with the Office
of the Federal Register, 10:35 a.m., December 27, 1988]